His Final Death Wish
by Starry's Light
Summary: The child took him home with her, a little company on the long journey ahead. Once she grows up, he tells her about the final death wish contract: the one that made him the tortured ghost he is now. Oneshot.


**Oh boy**

**I just**

**I just couldn't get this idea out of my head**

**so now it's here**

His Final Death Wish

Once upon a very long time ago, a man whose name had been long lost to time made an unfortunate promise. He didn't know how the young girl had accrued herself a pen, but her altercations to his contract simply could not go unnoticed.

_Be my BFF..._

He thought perhaps she would forget, would leave him to his dark and desolate forest. Leave him to his old memories and pains and the quiet bubble of longing deep inside.

Despite his terrifying power and despite his horridly apparent faults, she somehow deemed him important enough and denoted a spot in her bedroom for him to exist. Let him place down a couple of candles, stack a pile of old books, settle in, read.

Of course, the rebellious rapscallion wanted more out of him than a frightful little storytime here and there, but she began to find solace in those as well. The comfort of his voice, or maybe just his presence in the lonely spaceship that glided slowly across the universe, a silvery stone on endless black water. Maybe he was just the least annoying of the aliens she had met, and thus the best candidate for company.

Or maybe she liked him too.

He spent so long with the girl in the spaceship that they each lost count of time (not that the anti-aging Time Pieces helped in this matter one bit), but neither grew older, nor bored. He crafted more contracts to pass the time with her through a special magic that he did not explain, and she did not bother to learn the logistics of. These contracts allowed her to delve into her memories and challenge her previous adventures at an unreasonable difficulty. Though she failed often, he kept her soul safe, this time, from termination.

And for a time, they were happy.

Then one fateful moment, after a ceaseless flow of moments like the rest, they reached a place that she called Home. She said it with every ounce of breath in her little child-mouth, her face all puffed up and shimmery, aswirl with stars. When he glanced out the window, he saw very little to make a face dance as hers had.

A moderately-sized planet (he could compare planet sizes now that he had seen so many), altogether on the punier side of the spectrum, greeted them. The earth of the planet itself had been overtaken by man-made technologies built up by sleek ships not unlike the one he and his small friend had made their journey within.

She took his shadowy hand and said, directing his gaze to her own, "I'm real lucky my family lives here at this manufacture-y plant. They build things like this all day. Time Pieces are—well—they're fuel.

"Without all this, I never could've made it back after the accident. But now I'm here."

He lacked the heart to tell her the accident may have never occurred at all without "all this". But then, he never would've met her either... and he didn't want to mention the sundry prospect.

She procured a ribboned box—must've held one of the tokens or relics she had found back on his planet. An innocent grin twisting her lips, she gestured for the monster-looking thing in front of her to cram himself into it. To his distasteful sneer, she managed a scowl back—and quite the scowl it was. Snatcher winced. "C'mon Snatcher, get in! People might get scared of you, you... you peck!" The giggle broke through her snarl of a face, and she halted, flustered, blushing. "Just get in the box okay."

He smirked. "I suppose I have no other choice."

Sure, she could beat him down if she so desired (she'd decimated his boss fight on Hard Mode after all, even with that silly One-Hit badge equipped, and therefore he knew his chances were nonexistent), but... why wouldn't he want to listen to her, to make her life easier?  
She had won over a little more than expected when she wrote her last contract to him.

Upon exiting the ship, the kid and Snatcher (though hidden in his silly box) found her parents.

As he lay crammed in his box, he listened to the emotional reunion and elected to stay silent. He waited for some time.

She only released him from the box once they were behind the closed doors of her chambers at home. Even then, he had been demoted to a closet.

"Don't come out if other people are in my room. They might think you're a crazy alien and try to kill you."

Snatcher huffed. "I _am_ a crazy alien. You know kid, _you _were the crazy alien while you were—"

"I know I know I know, I just, okay_, _I don't want them to hurt you." She pouted, and her nervous eyes glowed in the dark of the room. "You're my stupid crazy alien."

Then there was a sound at the outside, and the girl squeaked and slammed the closet door shut in his face. How considerate of her.

Snatcher listened to the hushed mutter from his cell of a room—though he knew it wasn't a fair comparison, especially now that _this_ was all that remained of him: this strange, tortured, decayed soul that wasn't even entirely his own.

While he listened, he whispered, just so that he could hear it. "Thanks, Hakki."

_Hakki..._ his strange little _ha_tted _ki_ddo. His contractual BFF.

The days began to pass at a sudden, quickened pace, structured by the normalcy of Hakki's past life before the accident—the accident that had taken her so far away from home when her personal spaceship malfunctioned. (Now he personally wouldn't give a kid a personal spaceship—not that he knew anything about parenting, but it just didn't seem very smart. Maybe, however, it was normal for this strange space colony to just wrap up gigantic spaceship-sized presents for their children, and he knew he couldn't judge when he wouldn't have met her without the audacity of her parents.)

Each afternoon, when she came home from "space school" as he called it, she would open up the present-box and spend time with her ghostly companion. Sometimes they just spoke and let their words rekindle their adventures from his planet. Sometimes he read to her—she was not exactly the "book smart" type and took home more corrective measures than grades.

They still had adventures in her tiny world of a bedroom, but the adventures had to be kept quiet as to not arouse suspicion in the already hysteric parents of Hakki. They had lost their child for no small amount of years after all. Hakki managed to hookshot her ceiling fan _one time_ before it crashed to the ground and pretty much killed her parents with a nasty virus of fear, thinking the worst: that the accident had happened all over again. Funny, since Hakki couldn't face her spaceship afterward.

From what he saw in his closet-box, Snatcher had determined these parents of his child quite alright. Not anywhere near as fun or inventive or creative as him, of course, but suitable enough. They fed Hakki, tucked her in at bedtime, watched over her, kept her company. She had traveled across the universe to return Home to them for a reason.

The years passed in a comfortable symmetry. Not until he thought about it did he recognize the fact that Hakki was changing, ever so slightly—an after-effect of time's passage. She grew in height until one day she was so tall she could no longer jump that second time in midair. Her hair lengthened and fell down her back in a cascade of caramel. Gone was the cloak and gone were her now-too-small hats; although she could no longer get away with her over-sized clothing, she had grown comfortable in soft, shimmery dresses that curved about her steadily solidifying figure like comets in the night sky. Her favorite one was this seafoamy blue, and he had to admit: very solid choice, very solid.

She reminded him of someone but for the eyes, the bright cosmos-colored blue eyes, shining and full of wonder.

He kept waiting for the day, when Hakki would forget to open his box, when Hakki would forget to speak to him, when Hakki would no longer _care_, but the day had yet to break.

Soon the moment would come for Hakki to pick an occupation and move away from her childhood home, leave her aging parents behind. As that day approached, she spent more and more time with the present-box in her lap as she spoke through the hours with her ghostly companion.

"I'm a little scared," she mused as the day grew ever closer. Her voice, over the years, had lost its sharpness and smoothed out: melodious. "I don't really know where my passions lie when it comes to the outside world. I've thought about becoming an astro-explorer, but then I... I think about last time, and I think about all the people who tried to kill me, and I...

A sigh squeezed out her choked-up throat. "But I don't really want to spend my days building ships, either... and there's not a lot of options outside of that..." The skin bunched around her forehead as her face collapsed into her hands. "It's not like I get along with anyone else, so either way I get to spend all day waiting to see you."

Snatcher smirked, his golden mouth slashing across like the wayward strike of a magic blade. "Still gonna be keeping me around, uh kid? I'm surprised you've yet to grow tired of this ghost."

Her mouth began to move, but no sound escaped. She blinked, then, and shook her head. "You—" Shook it again, the smile squirming at her lips. "You know full well I'm a woman now, Snatcher. It's Miss Hat to you." Her playful eyes gleamed.

His giggle followed, still sharp and demonic, the likes that would come out from under a frightened child's bed at night. Something that made his heart churn, made him insecure. "Ahhh, whatever you say, kid."

"_Okay_, Snatcher. You're a goon."

He hummed in response.

They settled next to each other, as they had grown accustomed to for so many years. The warmth of her body drew him nearer, even as he knew he released a nasty chill that he worried, sometimes, would discourage the girl from his side. No—Not a girl at all but a woman. She was right, of course.

She was almost as old as he had been when Vanessa chained him up in her cellar...

The thought sent something hot and violent and dangerous through his spirit. He paused, thought about saying it, let it die in his mouth.

Then Hakki's eyes fell upon him. "Now tell me, Snatcher... what's the matter with you?"

His horridly dark voice splintered. "Oh gee, kid"—he masked it under a thick layer of sarcasm—"you can tell what a _ghost _is feeling? Might wanna get that checked out. "

"Snatcher..." Her laughter was soft, and it blanketed his hard heart. "I've known you for how long now? I spent time with _you_ rather than the other schoolchildren, remember? You were much more fun than anyone else I ever knew." Her hands politely folded over her lap, and she smiled into herself, or perhaps into her memories.

Snatcher coughed. "I—" A golden flush smeared over his darkened face. "Well. Uh." He glared at the carpeted floor of her bedroom in a silent storm of self-enforced agony. "You see, Hakki... I...

His eyes fell to his hands, his slightly open hands, dark and smeary and shadowy and pathetic. "I wasn't exactly graced with this _fine _form for all of my life. These powers came from somewhere else...

"Hey, you remember those 'death wish' contracts I had you sign? The ones I told you I made up just for fun?"

The serene calm in her complexion had cracked. "What do you..? Snatcher, what in the world about the Death Wishes are you referring to? I thought—I thought you _did_ make them up for fun."

"Well, about that." He winced; the shadow of it rippled across his ghostly form. "They're a tiny bit more than just for fun. I... I got the idea for them from the one that was delightfully laced into my soul a very, very, very long time ago. See kid, _she_ owns my body, stakes a claim over my soul. Not as fun as it sounds, uh?" A reluctant chuckle wrenched itself from his dry mouth. "My powers are a result of being... chained to _her_.

His eyes, squirming, struggled to shut. "I can't break her spell. The ones I did with you, I knew you could manage them. They were just... just challenges, things you had already overcome, just a little stronger. This one... it's...

Hakki stole the words from his reluctant mouth. "Malevolent." Her gaze darkened, sputtered, and faltered. "I—I'm sorry, Snatcher. Maybe I should've figured this out before. Clearly you're hurting." Her hand came close to his cheek; his entire spirit seized up at the brush of her touch. "Clearly... you're hurting. I almost feel, ah, selfish, to have forced you to come all this way with me."

"No, no no no..." His mouth collapsed into a shimmering golden grin. "You can't force me to do anything, kid." He dropped the growl in his tone to mutter, "I can't believe you _let_ me come with you."

"Of course I did." She faced him now, the tortured ghost of a man who she had never even known. "Snatcher, you don't... give yourself enough credit. You're kind—"

The words flew out. "No I'm really _not—_"

"Don't interrupt me." His mouth snapped shut. His face heated, sparkling gold. "You _are _kind. Know how I can tell? Because this power, this corrupted power that you've attained due to the monster who contracted herself to you... as much as it's hurt you, and as much as that hurt has made you hurt others... you've never let anyone die. You never let _me_ die. I don't know how many times you came so close to killing me. Heh—Practically did once or twice." As the memories basked in her face, he felt a... a shifting in his heart, like a window's opening, or a movement of clouds as to unblock the sun.

Suddenly there was a warmth inside of him, a frantically breathing warmth that throbbed hard in what remained of his spirit.

Hakki's lip quirked, like she sensed it. "You're very creative. The death wishes, sure, but... I noticed, even as a child, the ways you attempted to protect the children of the forest from Vanessa. You knew she might take their souls or freeze their spirits, and you tried to transform them into things she couldn't visualize, things she would never realize were the same as the ones who had once known her. And I always... liked listening to you, while you read.

"Heh—It's because of you that everyone at school thought I was a bookworm. I'd check out so many just to try to keep you sated while I was gone."

He could hardly breathe.

Why? He almost asked it, his too-warm chest aching: _why_? Why do all of these things for him? What in the massive universe had he done to deserve this woman's companionship?

Hakki, whether she saw it begging to be answered within him, did not voice it. Her eyes filled with him, a dark shadow in her brilliant blue gaze, and she whispered to him. "A piece of the contract must still be attached to you then, right? Like how I had my own copy of the contracts we signed."

"What do you want, kid?" And she called _him_ creative.

"Because—Don't you see, Snatcher?" Her eyes sparkled with the secrets of the galaxy, a fantastical uranian blue. "Let me sign your contract, too. Let me into the death wish with you. Then I can save you."

His lips parted. The warmth drained from him, leached by a cold throbbing deep inside of his long-injured spirit. "No, don't—"

"Snatcher." He couldn't speak over her. The place where his stomach would be if he'd a body began to twist. "I know who you truly are. _I _would know, after all that I've gone through with you. Now let me save you. I _want_ to save you. If I don't, I..." She winced; for a second he saw the fear wash over her, paling her pink cheeks, tensing up her limbs, seizing her whole body, pressurizing the serene blue in her intense eyes until they looked about to fracture.

Then her composure returned, but he knew he had seen it, could not unsee it, the frightful suddenness of her fear.

"Why... do you want to save me, Hakki?" he whispered.

She shook her head, her long caramel hair streaming about her. "Just let me. Just... let me. Please." He couldn't bring himself to look away when her eyes fell into him, and, with a wince, he slowly reached into the pit of his soul.

Out from it came an ancient many-times-folded paper. The ink on it had smeared in places and faded away in others, and it took Hakki a long moment to decipher its original meaning.

"She... got your body, and you became a part of her. S-Snatcher, that's... that's messed up."

Snatcher closed his tired eyes. "I had no choice, Hakki. Vanessa had me chained up to her cellar wall. It was sign or die. Heh, what a fool I..." He drew off, took in a sharp breath. "A part of me still hoped that..." He let his hands cover his desolate expression. "Well, no matter."

"I can't really make out the death wish on here... What exactly was it you were supposed to do? Make her... love you... again? I-Is that all?"

She spoke, but her words met an unfocused soul.

He still felt it, when the ice queen grasped another creature in her icicle hands and froze their unfortunate soul to ice. Again he sensed her when she called his name and moaned for his touch, a touch that would never be enough to satisfy her void heart.

Hakki's relentless voice warmed the bitter depths of his soul, the pieces that still clung so deeply to the monster whom had malformed him. "Snatcher. Snatcher—listen here. We'll do it together. Okay? It can't be that hard if it's the both of us against her. I got past her once, didn't I?"

He snatched her hand as pen touched paper, sending a horrid lurch through his diseased soul. "Think this through before you commit. Remember, the contract states that she gets your body and you become a piece of her—not that _Snatcher_ specifically becomes a piece of her, but that _you_ do. If we cannot break her spell, then you'll... you'll end up just like me."

The thought of it made a terrifying quell of nausea enter him. "Th-Think about it, Hakki. You'll forget who you are. Your name. Your family. Your adventures. Your life, your feelings... everything that makes you who you are. Everything about you save for the last few moments before you signed, and then the pain that comes with it.

"I don't want you to do this for me."

That's what he said, but this annoying spark of hope had wedged itself into him, a starstruck comet engulfing his fateful heart.

Her eyes leaped to him. "I've missed adventure. If you don't want me doing it for you, then, well, too bad. I'm gonna do it for me." Her familiar smug grin overcame her mouth as she added, beneath Snatcher's illegible name—the name he had before he became the Snatcher—her own.

From within him, Snatcher procured his wax seal. His fingers shuddered around the stamp as he mashed it into the page, effectively binding herself and rebinding himself to the wicked queen—

"Wait wait wait wait wait."

Hakki stumbled across her bedroom and ducked into her closet, returning with a patched old top hat that may have once been the color purple.

"Okay now you can continue."

Snatcher opened his mouth, shut it, then blurted, "Hakki they don't even fit you anymore."

"Well—Okay, sure, but let me have this." She huffed when she returned to her spot next to him. "I haven't gotten to go on an actual adventure since we left your planet."

The hat precariously balanced on her too-large head.

Snatcher rolled his gilded eyes, then finished stamping the wax.

Before his seal even left the page, the bound souls were extinguished of their respective bodies and sent through a nexus of purples and blacks. Frantically Hakki reached out and grasped what felt to be someone else's hands, and then the fear for her very unraveling existence overcame her.

"I'm scared, Snatcher."

His voice boomed back—but now it was smaller, gentler, no longer lanced with demonic power. "Oh, of course_. Now_ you're scared, huh? Probably should've thought about that before you signed—"

"You sure know how to comfort someone," she muttered.

"Oh. That's what you..." She could hear the flush on his cheeks. "I—Sorry. I won't..." He swallowed. "I won't let you get hurt."

A sudden blooming warmth caught her where she thought her chest would be. "You... won't?"

"Of course not, Hakki." His murmur filled her ears and wrapped her in a comforting hug. She could—She could breathe again, could laugh, slightly.

She managed a "thank you" before they landed in a realm full of sunshine and tall trees.

The forest breezed happily about them, leaves dancing in their branches, birds chirruping, sunlight dazzling the earth. In front of Hakki stood a young woman of high, primped cheekbones and coiled blonde hair that draped down her back. Her tight foliage-colored dress accentuated her sleek body and landed just before the dirt on the ground.

Hakki stood breathless before her beauty.

This woman had not noticed her quite yet. She was speaking to a man in red. "...really love me?"

"Yes," he replied, earnest, his tan cheeks filled with rosy mirth. His auburn hair blanketed his face, and he had turned a little from the woman, just enough so that Hakki could not make it out. She desperately wanted to reach out and touch his soft, silky clothing, just to feel it rub underneath her fingers, but something told her now was not the time.

Shifting nervously, she made a step or two back from the couple. Her mouth opened, and though she couldn't see him, she asked breathlessly "Snatcher where are you" to no avail.

"Simon," the woman murmured, her lipsticked mouth pursed, "how much do you love me?"

"I..." He hesitated. Suddenly aware of it, his voice sped up, blending his words together. "Well yes I love you so incredibly much I love you more than anything else I love you more than my kingdom my people my everything." There was something hollow in his voice, something that danced about his words in the hopes of not being spotted.

The blonde young woman relaxed. He was apparently safe for now.

"Simon, would you kill that girl for me?"

And then her glossy, manicured nail was stabbing in the direction of Hakki.

Hakki forced her body to steady. S-So what? If it came to that, she could take this prince-looking boy. She'd dismantled mafia goons (and assisted in the process of putting their boss in a freaking jar), fought two birds at once with zero stones, somehow miraculously (probably with cheat codes) defeated the ultimate boss of Snatcher, and saved the world by almost killing everyone.

What was one puny man?

His head turned, reluctantly, to face her.

The eyes hit her first, soft and hazel and borderline golden.

Then—Then she recognized him, and then she couldn't breathe.

"Snatcher," she mouthed, and he shook his head hard, mouthing back "don't let her know."

Teeth gritting, he uttered, "Yes, my love, I would kill that girl for you."

A horrendous pink beam splattered across the queen's bright face. "Awww, you would? That's so _sweet_. I'm honored.

A pause, and she asked, "But would _you_ die for me?"

Suddenly a flash of silver was in her hands.

Snatcher glanced between the knife and the bloodred gaze of Queen Vanessa, the woman he had somehow once fallen in love with.

"It's okay, _darling_." As she spoke, voice dripping with venomous adoration, Snatcher caught the movement of another woman in the shadows. _Hakki_. His heartbeat intensified, splintering through his veins. "I own you, remember? I own everything." Oh, it felt so wonderful to have his body again—and his _name_. To remember his name... To remember his life, the life he once had... oh, it was a dream, a beautiful dream. He knew all too well that the moment he gave up for the umpteenth try on this death wish, this accursed death with to make the murderess love him again, that it would all go away.

Then his blood became ice when he recalled who else would lose everything if he did.

Vanessa's blade caressed his neck. "I'll bring you right back, Simon, I proooomisse~"

His neck, frigid with her touch, grew numb.

Then a _burst _of heat overcame him as the knife fluttered out of reach and fell into shaking pale hands. Hakki shivered at his side, staring into the ice queen's painted face with wet, frightful eyes. "D-Don't do that. That's not very nice."

Her voice broke the spell of Simon's silence. He shook himself, opened his mouth, hesitated, shook again, spoke: "P-Please don't treat me like your toy, Vanessa." If she really loved him, she wouldn—

From a slit in her dress came a second blade. This one's metal finish glistened with rusted blood.

Simon could not find the air to breathe. _Who_ had she...

"I have to kill everyone," the queen clarified, "every single woman who has ever laid eyes on you. They'll take you from me, I _know_ it. Then once they've all been sent to Hell, I'll kill you too, my darling, so that nobody else can take you! But first..." Her words shredded across her lips as she leaped behind Simon and planted the knife in Hakki's chest—

But with her stolen blade, Hakki knocked it to the earth and darted away from the queen, only whimpering when the blood began to spot her dress. Her old hat fell from her head, and with a shaking hand she awkwardly stuffed it into her dress, a paltry attempt to staunch the bleeding.

Simon's heart _crunched_ in his chest. "Vanessa," he tried, pushing at the queen, fighting for distance between the women. He kept glancing back at Hakki, only satisfied when the bloodflow began to ebb. She'd turned the killing strike into a nasty cut.

In front of her wound, she held out her blade with clunky, inexperienced fingers.

While his eyes faced otherwise, Vanessa shrieked. "DON'T LOOK AT THAT WRETCH, DARLING, I'M RIGHT HERE!" Her nails scissored into his body, fingers desperately prying for him. "I'LL KILL HER FOR YOU, I WILL! THEN IT'LL BE YOUR TURN."

She launched herself below his arm and lunged at the girl. Simon yanked her back by her shoulder, grappling with her swinging hand and merely gaining a few wicked swipes across his own. Grunting through the pain, he grappled for a hold over her wrist. Her next cuts remained shallow, and though they stung, he held on tight.

The thought of losing Hakki hurt eons further than these ever would.

N-Now what? His body shook with the incredible burden of fighting the monstrous queen back.

He couldn't get her to love him. She always killed him first (to not let her kill him disillusioned her, which of course meant she wouldn't admit she loved him anyways), and—unlike with Hakki—he couldn't return so easily and try again. There were no loopholes, no—no ways to turn her blue like every boss his companion had fought as a child, no way to exploit the queen.

All that remained was giving up once again.

With his head bowed and all of his efforts focused exclusively on holding Vanessa tight, he did not notice the footsteps of his companion.

"Stop treating him like dirt," she said, and when he looked up, he met Hakki's eyes, so thick with emotion they appeared to be melting. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but you... you need to stop."

"Nnnnrnrrhhhhhggghgh..." Vanessa apparently had nothing else to say to the woman before her.

Swallowing, Hakki added, "If you actually loved him, you'd treat him way better. He's too nice for someone like you to get to destroy it. That's not..." She released a shuddering breath as her dress fluttered, revealing for a moment the glistening red across her chest. "That's not cool."

Then like a sick joke, ice rippled over Simon's fingers. He let out a cry and released the woman as the ice fractured over his skin, ripping it wide open.

Vanessa's body began to hunch into a familiar black form. Her soft eyes sharpened, darkened, and hardened into the color of dried blood. "How _dare_ you, girl. Can't you tell I love him with all my soul? That's why he's _mine_ and nobody else's."

Simon opened his mouth when he felt a strange glinting heat in his chest.

He—He looked down and saw a signature glittering over his body, one that, now faded, slowly began to strengthen and return to legible script.

The death wish.

Vanessa had required he make her fall in love with him again.

...she just admitted to it. Hakki had—

Eyes streaming, he sought for the woman who had just revived his desolated existence.

He watched as Hakki's eyes rose to met his, her lips twisted into a fanciful grin, her arms outstretched to him—

And Vanessa's brittle fingers shackled to her wrists.

Simon's breath caught in his throat. He forced himself to move forward, but only too soon he realized his body was... fading. No—Fading from the confines of this realm, this made-up death realm Vanessa had crafted so that he could never win, never taste life upon his lips again.

He could see the fear flash through Hakki's eyes as he disappeared, even with his arms fighting for purchase over hers.

An oddly familiar cold had entered Hakki's veins.

She looked up at the creature who, even while hunched, towered over her.

Over the monster's shoulder, Simon had dissipated. For a second all she saw was the gold in his eyes, the beautiful sparks of liberated gold, and then he was gone too.

Now it was her and the ice queen.

"Um." Hakki winced. "You uh, you never loved me in the first place, so I think the contract is sort of null on me. Can't really love me _again_, can you?"

Vanessa did not respond.

Something strange and warm flowed into her toes. She looked down and saw her body was beginning to disappear as well. The contract knew as she did that it had already been broken—

But the rest of her body remained shackled to Vanessa, and very quickly she was growing cold.

Hakki threw her weight at the hands that gripped her like chains, again, _again_, but Vanessa's hands merely shifted to accommodate, and then ice was gripping her too, horrible sheets of ice so cold she was struggling to remember who she even was.

"Let go," she mumbled, "let go, let go... I..."

She couldn't...

Furiously blinking, hot tears cascaded her cheeks. "You didn't deserve him..."

Then deep within the pit of the hunched monster, a low, throaty tone sifted into her ears, crashing down over her with all the weight of her disgusting power. "And you think _you_ do, girl?"

But the shock was enough—the moment of Vanessa reconsidering her obligations to the prince was enough, as with her doubts Hakki _shattered_ through the fingers of ice and fell to the ground as her dissolving body stretched for the heavens—

even as Vanessa's hands attempted to enter her chest—

steal her heart—

_kill_—

and Hakki's mind was overcome with the liberated prince.

Darkness again, a sea of darkness swarmed over him: the freed spirit. He floated in it for some time, alone now, alone but for the beating in his chest of a heart—a real heart, not just the imagined ghost of one.

With his body, he felt the things he had not been able to feel for so long. A torrential wave of distress consumed him at the thought of his Subcon children who had been malformed by Vanessa's magic and forsaken of their souls by his. He prayed that with his contract breaking, theirs would as well, and they would find the peace they deserved. As his mind's eye paged through the eons of memories he had experienced without truly living, he felt a rumble in his throat as he laughed at old Dead Bird Studio films and Mafia Town shenanigans. Awe washed over him at the sight of an Alpine Skyline sunrise, and for a moment he saw the girl he wished to share it with.

The girl—

Then violently he was reliving their interactions. The moment he met her, still a child, a rambunctious little scamp. The deeds he forced her to undertake, the fight he waged with her, the sudden aching loneliness that threatened to kill him when he saw those words scribbled across their final contract.

Her BFF he had become indeed.

Then the years sped up in his mind as he saw Hakki in her spaceship, as they made their adventures and traveled through the universe and returned to her Home. He watched her grow older and give him books and play with him and make the raincloud of his soul procure the tiniest of rainbows.

He saw her again, as she was now, her caramel hair caught in the sunlight, her lips pressed together playfully keeping in a laugh, her skin flushed with mirth. She danced through his head, her dress kicking about the heels, her hands reaching out to take his own.

Hakki, he whispered, and then he whispered it again just to hear her name for himself. With his voice, his true voice, Hakki...

She swam through his head as he awoke, face-down on her bed.

Her bed.

It smelled like—her. The sweet scent of the woman who had saved him.

He tumbled through her space-colored sheets and surfaced, staring into her bedroom. The same drawings on the walls of Cooking Cat and Mafia Town and Conductor with five hundred children, the same posters of the things of her own world she had grown interested in. Her closet door was tilted on the cusp of open, and he could make out her little old hats lining the shelf at the top.

He caught his reflection in the mirror lining the door and gaped.

His face. He touched it, his cheek, his lips, his forehead, his brows, all with the same breathless incredulity.

His body, still in the same silky red shirt he had worn the day his once-love took him to her cellar—like a rift in time had opened, accosted him of his disastrous fate, and landed him here.

"Hakki," he tried on his old, gentle voice, and he basked in the glow of its sound.

But where was she?

He bit into his lip. "Hey, kid—I mean... Hakki. Hakki, look. I know I made you sign all those deadly contracts, all of which killed you once or twice (and would've succeeded if I wasn't so generous), but you can't go dying on me _now_. C-C'mon. I'm not even a scary ghost anymore."

The shudder flung through him, and for a long moment, he felt so... alone.

Then he felt something shift beneath his hand.

He gasped, falling over it—falling into her.

Her body reformed beneath him. He felt her warmth press into him, and he lost himself in the lovely smell of her hair.

Whatever Vanessa had done to her had not been sustained. His heart eased with a sigh of incredible relief.

He sensed her lean into him, and their noses touched.

Crystalline blue eyes drew into him. "Snat..." Paused, a smile dawning to her face. "Simon."

He sighed. "Say it again, Hakki."

And she did. And once her mouth drew closed, their lips met for the first time.

He forgot what it felt like to be lonely, to be empty, to be broken by the creature who had owned him for oh, so long. His eyes shut to the sensation of her moving beneath him. His arms slipped behind her back and clutched her close to him, stroking her skin even as he lost himself to the wonderful feeling of her in his arms. Her arms encircled his back, and his heart eased deep inside of him.

They broke their kiss to breathe, then fell into another. His lips danced across her skin, moving from mouth to cheek to neck. His head settled against her own, and he released a long, soundless breath.

Breaking the spell, he murmured into her ear, "I love you, Hakki."

Her giggles bounced against his chest. "I know."

He couldn't stop the smirk that cut against his mouth. "Oh, that's it? You knew all along, uh?" Her laughter resounded, harder, warmer. "Just wanted me to have a _body_ before you told me? Would it be too hard to make out with a _ghosty boy_?"

"Oh, stop it, stop it," she wheezed, her hands digging into him. "Oh my _goodness_ I'm gonna pecking pee myself if you make me laugh that hard!

She nuzzled into him as her breathing eased. He tugged her close, his hand falling around her face and gently stroking her cheek. "I love you too, you ghosty goon. Is that what you wanted to her?"

He snorted. "Not particularly, no. Not with _that_ attitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "Well that's the attitude you're getting today, mister."

Then they heard the _delightful_ sound of footsteps moving towards her door, and the muffled question of "Dear, is there someone in your room with you?"

They shared a wonderfully shocked expression. "What do we tell them," she whispered.

"Oh let me just crawl back into my box," he offered, and she gently pushed him.

They thought about it for a long moment. Her parents asked again, and Hakki finally groaned. "_Yes_, there's someone in here with me."

Her parents, who had long been under the unfortunate assumption that Hakki had no friends (save for that one girl with the bow in her hair who was more a pest than anything else), asked, "Well, who is it?"

Simon sat up. He patted the spot beside him on her bed, and Hakki scooted up to fill it. "Don't worry, I've got an idea," he assured her, and though her brow quirked, she nodded assent.

But first she pulled a familiar hourglass out from under her bed and chucked it at the ground.

"...worry, I've got an—" Simon caught himself and stared at the razzled hourglass laying by his feet. "Why did you—"

"I don't know, I figured I'd help somehow." His eyes fell over her, and she threw the biggest, cheekiest grin she could muster.

He had to stop himself from kissing her again.

Once her parents had opened the door and came face-to-face with the no-longer-ghosty-boy, Simon cleared his throat. "Hi, um... sorry you haven't met me before. You see, I'm, ah... I'm your daughter's alien time-traveling boyfriend." With a foot, he awkwardly nudged the hourglass, like, see? Look at that. Time travel, right?

She covered her mouth to keep the hysterical laughter from escaping. He ignored her and continued. "We met a very long time ago, back when she was lost in space as a child. It's really quite unfortunate I hadn't met either of you since then, but the whole time business—it's very tricky. I kept transporting myself to the wrong times, plus there were things I, ah, had to deal with back in my own world.

"But I've finally made it here."

Her hand not so subtly brushed over his own. He felt his heart explode.

Evidently enough, her parents bought his explanation and let him stay in their household while they attempted to come to terms with the whole time-traveling alien boyfriend thing.

And evidently enough, having the ghosty boy become a man was enough to Hakki to recognize what she wanted to do all along.

She leaned into him, head on his shoulder, and told him, once her parents had left the room.

"I think I know now, Simon. I...

"With... you _with_ me, Simon, I feel like I'd, ah, feel a lot safer adventuring. You're... You support me. And I'd like to go back to your planet. I miss it. Its beauty, its wonders... so much more to offer than here. I'm sure you want to return to it too, to try to help the Subcon children, now that that... power isn't controlling you any longer.

"Would you like that?"

His smile met hers, and he murmured into her, "Of course I would. That—That would be wonderful, Hakki."


End file.
